PUNE: Caught in the middle of a raging storm against bigger diesel sports utility vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra, India's largest utility vehicle maker on Friday launched an all new micro-SUV, the KUV 100 at an aggressive price of Rs 4.42 lakh to Rs 6.76 lakh ex-showroom Pune aimed at the first time car buyers, which the company claims is the start of a 'new chapter' in its history.Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra who addressed the gathering through a video message said the launch of KUV is a new inflection point in the history of Mahindra & Mahindra and probably bigger than Scorpio, which too was an inflection point for Mahindras.

Mahindra claims KUV 100 is the most fuel efficient SUV in the country delivering a fuel efficiency of 25.32 kilometer to a litre of diesel and it offers 18.15 kilometer to a litre of petrol.

Powered by an all-new 1.2 litre petrol engine and 1.2 litre common rail diesel engine, the vehicle is based on a new monocoque architecture, which has been developed with an investment of close to Rs 1,200 crore over a period of 4 years by 350 engineers.

KUV 100 will not only help de-risk Mahindra from the noise against diesel vehicle -- as the new sub-compact SUV comes with an all new petrol engine - it will also help the SUV maker to tap into a large 1,00,000 units a month market for premium hatch backs.

Pawan Goenka, ED of Mahindra & Mahindra told ET, KUV 100 marks an important new chapter in the company’s history.

“It does two things for us, from an impression of Mahindra being a larger vehicle maker it takes us into an imagery of us being an end to end player. And any person who has concern that diesel will come under fire, it will assure them that Mahindra does have a serious petrol offering to be significant in the future,” adds Goenka.

KUV 100 will not only help de-risk Mahindra from the noise against diesel vehicle -- as the new sub-compact SUV comes with an all new petrol engine - it will also help the SUV maker to tap into a large 1,00,000 units a month market for premium hatch backs.

With the KUV he says Mahindra is creating new price points for SUVs in the country and the vehicle’s design, features and aggressive pricing will help the company take on the might of Maruti Suzuki Swift and Hyundai Grand i10 in the segment and attract a lot of first time car buyers to Mahindra.

The love for SUV at the entry level can be seen by the over whelming response the Renault Kwid - a car in the SUV avatar got with over 80,000 booking in the last five months. EcoSport when it was launched saw, a similar kind of frenzy, which compelled Ford to stop taking bookings.

Since the first image unveil almost a month back, Mahindra has got 1.5 million views on its microsite in the last one month for KUV100 and almost 3 lakh views in the last two days alone. The company has got 50,000 hot enquiries and the company will reveal the booking number in the coming few days.

The company says the utility vehicle segment has grown by 51% in the last three years, whereas the passenger car segment has seen a de-growth of 7% in the same time frame, thereby increasing the share of utility vehicle to 23% of the overall market as against 15% share three years ago. And the share of compact utility vehicle in the space has risen to 45% of the overall utility vehicle space.

Goenka said the vehicle has a potential to grab at least 8-10% segment share of 1,00,000 units a month market.

“Our objective always was to ensure, driving and riding comfort, maneuverability, fuel efficiency what a small car buyer will look for, at the same time offer driving pleasure and stance that an SUV buyer would look for, we have tried to put best of both worlds in KUV in the right price and size,” said Goenka.Mahindra has stuck to its forte of offering big value proposition to its customers. At such an attractive price point of 4.42 lakh to 6.76 lakh, the company offers a stylish, highly fuel efficient vehicle, which is high on safety with ABS and EBD as standard and dual airbags as an option across all variants including base variant.

The vehicle is loaded with host of features like wrap around headlamps with daytime running lights, alloy wheels, rear spoiler, mood lighting, cooled glove box, infotainment system with Aux, Bluetooth, USB etc.

The KUV 100 has a potential of adding another 30-40% or 8,000 to 10,000 units to Mahindra’s monthly volumes and may become the largest selling model for the company in the mid-term, say people in the know of the development.

The vendors have already been told to be prepared with monthly production of 6000 to 7000 units, which could be scaled up to 12,000 units within 6 months. The model is forecasted to have a peak volume of 1,50,000 units per annum.

Aimed at the youth, Mahindra has already got Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan as the vehicles’ brand ambassador and the company has already tied up with Flipkart, Carandbike.com and M2all.com, in house website to the hi-tech youth of today to book vehicle online.

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In 2018, automobile demand remained robust despite the slowdown overcast in the last three months of year. All segments reported strong double-digit growth in the calendar year ending December 31 except passenger vehicles which reported a growth of 5 per cent. Three-wheelers sales grew fastest followed by commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, and passenger vehicles. The overall automobile sales crossed 26.7 million units for the first time.

In 2018, automobile demand remained robust despite the slowdown overcast in the last three months of year. All segments reported strong double-digit growth in the calendar year ending December 31 except passenger vehicles which reported a growth of 5 per cent. Three-wheelers sales grew fastest followed by commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, and passenger vehicles. The overall automobile sales crossed 26.7 million units for the first time.